July 22, 2009 ALP Total Solar
Eclipse Expedition To Jiaxing, China
by Edwin L. Aguirre & Imelda Joson
When our tour group
arrived in Shanghai on Monday afternoon (July 20th), the
sky was hazy but sunny. The same was true on Tuesday
(July 21st) -- we enjoyed abundant hazy sunshine
throughout the day, so everyone was optimistic about the
prospects of seeing Wednesday’s eclipse. During dinner
at the hotel’s restaurant in Jiaxing, however, we heard
a series of thunderclaps followed by brilliant flashes
of lightning. Not a very good sign. Shortly afterward,
the wind picked up and rain came pouring down.
By midnight, the rain had subsided to a light drizzle
but the sky was still overcast. We were now getting
really concerned about the weather condition so Imelda
and I, together with Michael Bakich of Astronomy
Magazine, reviewed the latest forecasts for the area and
downloaded/analyzed the most recent weather satellite
images. It looked like a massive front had moved in and
got stalled along the eclipse path, and it was bringing
in lots of clouds and thunderstorms to the entire
eastern half of China.
We considered moving to another site -- to Huzhou to the
west or across the Yangtze River Delta to the south --
but predicting where the wind would blow and the clouds
would move during the next 12 hours proved very tricky.
The consensus was to check the satellite images again
one last time before dawn and decide whether to stay at
our original intended spot or relocate elsewhere to try
and search for a hole in the cloud cover.
Everyone in our group was up early that Wednesday
morning. We checked the satellite images again, but
there was no significant change in the front's cloud and
wind pattern. Our local tour guide even called his
Chinese contacts in Hangzhou and Shanghai, but the
weather conditions at those locations were also not very
promising. The weather office in Jiaxing predicted that
the wind would shift from the northwest to the northeast
by the time of the eclipse. If it did, then the sea
breeze would help push the cloud band far enough south
that it might give us some clear skies. So ultimately,
the three of us (Imelda, Mike, and myself) decided to
try our luck at our original observing site -- the Nine
Dragons Hill Resort, which is right on the coast. This
beautiful private resort lies very close to the eclipse
centerline and is about an hour's drive east of Jiaxing.
When we got there, the sky actually started to improve
during the partial phase. The clouds began to thin out,
allowing us views of the rapidly dwindling crescent Sun.
But about a minute or so before totality, it started to
rain and it didn't let up until well after third
contact. Although we missed seeing the diamond ring or
the corona, the darkness that prevailed that morning was
no less than dramatic. It was as if the sky's light
switch was suddenly turned off at second contact. It got
so dark that we could barely see our hands held in front
of us. All the lights in the marina turned on
automatically during totality. Everyone in our tour
group just stood there in the rain, gazing skyward in
complete silence and admiring the eerie, unearthly
darkness. Soon afterward, totality was over and daylight
came back quite abruptly.
Attached you'll find three images taken by Imelda --
snapshots of me with our 3-inch Takahashi FS-78 fluorite
apo refractor and Canon EOS digital SLR camera and our
group members observing under a tent, as well as a view
of the partial phase taken by her with a Canon 100-400
mm EF-L IS USM zoom lens (no solar filter was needed).
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This was the first time we had
watched an eclipse under an umbrella. (Luckily our
telescope and camera gear didn't get wet.) The eclipse
of 2009 broke our personal record of eight out of eight
successful eclipses. But we didn't feel too bad about
what had happened. We knew from the beginning that the
weather prospects in China was poor since it was the
middle of the monsoon season, and that we only had a
50/50 chance of seeing totality. Still, we were hoping
for the best. (We even brought to the site the ALP
banner, which Jun had loaned to us.)
The rest of our stay in China more than made up for the
eclipse. In Shanghai we were able to take a night cruise
along the Huangpu River, climb the Oriental Pearl TV
Tower in Pudong, visit the water town of Zhujiajiao
(also known as the "Venice of the East"), tour
Shanghai's Old City, Yu Yuan Gardens and the Jade Buddha
Temple, and take the Maglev (magnetic levitation)
high-speed bullet train from downtown Shanghai to the
PVG airport (the train attained a top speed of 431
kilometers per hour!).
In Xi'an we saw the famous life-size terracotta warriors
guarding the tomb of Emperor Qin (Imelda even obtained
the autograph and had her photo taken with the Chinese
peasant farmer who accidentally dicovered the tomb in
1974). We also saw the Golden Buddha at the the Greater
Wild Goose Pagoda, Xi'an's Islamic mosque, and the City
Wall's South Gate. In addition, we also had a chance to
tour silk, pearl, and jade factories, as well as an art
gallery that taught us the traditional art of Chinese
watercolor painting and calligraphy (writing Chinese
characters using brush, ink, and rice paper).
In Beijing we toured Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden
City, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, Beihai
Park, and the Ancient Observatory, and saw the Giant
Pandas at the Beijing Zoo. The highlight, of course, was
the visit to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of
China outside Beijing. Overall, it was a fantastic trip,
though the weather was quite hot and humid.
Next year, we'll get another chance to see the Sun's
corona. The same company -- Astronomical Tours -- which
had invited us to lead the tour to China, had asked us
again earlier this year to lead one of its tours, this
time for the July 11, 2010, total solar eclipse in the
South Pacific. We will be observing with our group from
Tatakoto, a small island (actually an atoll) in the
Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia (see the
attached map). We'll be staying overnight in Tahiti
before boarding our chartered turboprop plane to
Tatakoto, which lies about 1,200 kilometers (700 miles)
east of Tahiti. The tour was offered to the public only
in late May this year, but it filled up very quickly and
is now sold out as of today. The tour is limited to only
35 people since this is the plane's passenger capacity.
Tatakoto lies very close to the eclipse centerline.
Totality here is expected to last 4 minutes 25 seconds
on the early morning of July 11th. (Tatakoto is the last
land area before the Moon's shadow reaches Easter
Island.) Tatakoto features white sand beaches, coral
reefs, a blue lagoon, a small airstrip, a village with
about 255 native people, copra plantations, and clam
farms (see the attached image of the atoll as seen from
space). We'll be observing right on the beach, near the
airstrip. Here's the link to the tour:
http://www.astronomicaltours.net/2010/Tatakoto/index.html
Tatakoto Atoll |
Tatakoto Map |
For 2012, we're planning to
observe the May annular eclipse in Northern California
or Arizona. Why not join us there? The chance of cloudy
skies in China is about 60 to 80 percent, while it's
only 10 to 40 percent for the western half of the US
(see Jay Anderson's website http://www.eclipser.ca/ ).
For the total solar eclipse in November that year, we
are planning to see it from northern Australia as well.
This will be a good excuse for us to visit Imelda's aunt
and cousins in Melbourne. We're thinking of going to
Hawaii -- or the Philippines -- for the June transit of
Venus. It's going to be a very busy year in terms of
travel!
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